Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

Divine Mercy Sunday. If you Need Confession Today is the Day for it

Posted: April 16, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
Tags: , , ,

Cardinal Lamberto: Would you like, to make your confession?

Michael Corleone: Your Eminence, I’m uh – I’m uh — it’s been so long, I wouldn’t – wouldn’t – wouldn’t know where to uh, it’s been thirty years, I’d – I’d – I’d use up too much of your time, I think.

Cardinal Lamberto: I always have time to save souls.

Michael Corleone: Well, I’m — I’m beyond redemption.

Cardinal Lamberto: [in italian to an approaching priest] Give us a couple of minutes alone please – thanks… [To Michael when the other priest leaves] I hear the confessions of my young priests here. Sometimes the desire to confess is overwhelming. And we must seize the moment.

Michael Corleone: What is the point of confessing if I don’t repent?

Cardinal Lamberto: I hear you are a practical man. What have you got to lose?

In my opinion if you had to name both the most and the least popular sacrament of the Catholic Church the answer would be the same.

Confession.

The Godfather Part 3 1990

There are people who rush to the confessional and go there regularly sometimes multiple times a week. There are others who avoid it like the plague itself. The source of both of these impulses are the same.

Seeing oneself in the light of truth.

To the person who sees himself in the light of truth and accepts that reality. The confessional is a place of cleansing. Like a shower after heavy work. Such a person understands the state of their soul and wishes to be made clean. The irony among such people is it’s my experience that the holier a person is the greater the tendency for confession because like a skilled carpenter who can tell the difference between a beam off 1/32 of an inch and one that is not, a person of deep faith and devotion sees the small imperfections in themselves that others might miss and confess to get themselves completely right with God.

Ironically to those who avoid confession it is many times the same but are in denial. It’s one thing to know in the back of your head who and what you are, but it’s quite another to have that reality brought before God to be acknowledged even in the privacy of the confessional becuase at that moment you have to bear the sight of yourself in the light of truth.

That more than anything else I suspect is what hell is all about, the denial and self loathing of what a person is in the light of truth which is God. It’s why so many choose hell, and believe me it’s a choice because to them the acknowledgement of what they are is beyond what they can bear. I recall a priest telling me a story of a saint who had been allowed to visit heaven asking about a friend who had died. When told the friend was in hell, the saint pleaded with God to the point where God allowed the soul in his presence. Rather than sharing the joy of the saint at deliverance the soul was angry and said to God “Tell this fool that all this brings me is pain.” To the damned the sufferings of hell, horrible as they are, are more bearable than the presence of God and the truth of themselves.

Maybe that is you. Maybe your sins are so great that the very idea of confessing them is abborant, or maybe like Michael Corleone you believe the sins are so great they can’t be forgiven. You have given into despair.

But that need not be for as Christ told St. Faustina:

I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.”

St. Faustina Diary 699

All over the world in parishes near and far priests are gathering for extra confession, extra masses and extra adoration to help the faithful and the lost take advantages of these mercies offered by Christ so that they may be wiped clear and get on that narrow path that leads to life. Again in the Lord’s words related to St. Faustina:

[Let] the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy.

Diary 1146

Those who take advantage of this feast to obtain the mercy of God not only get that mercy, but discover something that so many people don’t realize. That Christ offers this mercy every single day of their lives thorough the sacrament of confession. It’s they’re for the taking if people will only grab it.

Take advantage of this mercy while you can, seize the moment because as Christ warns…

He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice 

Diary 1146

Your call.

I Don’t get the Confusion here

Posted: April 13, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, catholic, official oppression
Tags: ,

If you work under the assumption they’re all Marxists it all makes sense

Steve Nott

At Hotair David Strom notes the war against the Catholic Church by this administration :

But even with these caveats, I have to conclude that Biden is, in fact, anti-Catholic in the simplest sense: he is at war with Catholics and the Catholic Church.

The evidence is irrefutable and copious. In just the past 4 days I found 4 stories about Biden Administration attacks on Catholics, and if you go back further than that you can find innumerable more. The FBI has categorized Catholic traditionalists as potential domestic terrorists, placed informants in Catholic organizations, kicked Catholic priests out of Walter Reed, and let a domestic terrorist who attacked a Catholic Church off with a slap on the wrist.

The latest example of course being the slap on the wrist for vandalizing churches:

He closes thus:

The Biden Administration has clearly targeted Catholics and the Catholic Church for what amounts to state suppression. The Catholic faith is being treated as a font of dangerous ideological ideas and a potential breeding ground for domestic terrorists. Further, the Biden Administration has basically declared open season on Catholic institutions, looking the other way as Catholic institutions have been vandalized.

Is it the pro-life doctrines of the Church that so offend?

Is it the hostility to gender ideology that stems from the Catholic Natural Law tradition?

Or is it just that the Church as an institution provides a cultural counterweight to the ideological power of the state?

I really don’t understand, to be honest. But the evidence is clear.

As a Catholic I really don’t see the confusion here because Christ was really explicit about this kind of thing during the Last Supper discourses to his disciples:

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,  because they do not know the one who sent me.

John 15:17-21

So when I see this:

And Christ’s word to those opposing him:

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot bear to hear my word. You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:42-44

I remember that there are two sides in the eternal battle and that like the Satanists who hold the black mass because they KNOW the Eucharist is the actual body of Christ, this administration knows, the mediocre Francis not withstanding, that the Catholic Church is not on theirs because they willingly carry out their father’s desires.

Mr. Storm might not understand it but I understand all too well.

If the Choice is between Motivating the Left and Saving Kids or De-Motivating them and Letting Kids Get Slaughtered I’ll take the former Every Time.

Posted: April 10, 2023 by datechguy in abortion, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics

Look, If I’m going to hell, it’s not going to be over a peanut

Mother Angelica when told if she didn’t give a kickback her sisters would lose their peanut concession

I seem to be noticing a lot of articles like this one on Abortion and the electoral map.

They’ve been polling on abortion since forever, and the evolution of American attitudes toward the issue of abortion can be clearly tracked here and here. Lately, a significant shift in those polls has occurred and voters are now tilting decisively in favor of permitting abortion in most circumstances.

This shift has taken place after last spring’s Dobbs decision, which left abortion up to individual states. This suggests at least some abortion opinion was moved by many states making abortion illegal. Some women didn’t know what they had until it was gone.

America used to be a 50-50 nation on abortion. Not anymore.

Yeah who knew that women were dying for the right to kill their kids right up until the day they were born. That’s what we’re seeing getting passed in blue states all over.

Moran ends thus:

There is no substitute for that kind of motivation. And unless Republicans can come up with a dynamite solution to their abortion problem, they’re going to end up in the minority — perhaps permanently.

Well let me remind Mr. Moran and the GOP why a person whose first vote for President was for Walter Mondale. It was the very first CPAC back when it was in DC proper. I had interviewed a bunch of Tea Party types and bloggers ad thought it would be a cool thing to talk to Democrat about what they believe and why. During the interview they asked me why I became a republican and I was asked by them: Why did you want to be a republican.

!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src=”https://rumble.com/embedJS/u17hbct”+(arguments%5B1%5D.video?’.’+arguments[1].video:”)+”/?url=”+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+”&args=”+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, “script”, “Rumble”);
Rumble(“play”, {“video”:”v1hrpo4″,”div”:”rumble_v1hrpo4″});

I suspect I’m not alone among people of faith who went to the GOP because they were no longer welcome with the Democrats as faithful Christians.

We voted this way and worked this way for a purpose. The purpose was to end the evils of abortion and the other cultural evils that have come from it.

These purposes, not the power of elected office is what this has been all about .Did the GOP drop anti-slavery because they lost in 1856? Did they drop anti slavery when there was pushback from the army and some of the populace over the Emancipation proclamation?

I’m sorry but the principle of not slaughtering kids in the womb is more important than polling from an individual election and it will remain so.

If the GOP doesn’t want to provide a home for the faithful, if power trumps principle and if the goal is not to advance our beliefs but to advance people careers then I wish them the best of luck.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. If the choice is between a pro-life democrats who actually means it and a pro-abortion republican whether they mean it or not, I’ll choose life every single time.

“What is Truth?” Miami Herald Edition

Posted: April 7, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, media, News/opinion
Tags: , , , , ,

So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered,

“You say I am a king.For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” 

John 18:37-38a

As Christians mark Good Friday and Catholics around the world at their churches read the exchange between Jesus and Pilate on Truth we saw an example of the question of what is truth from the Miami Herald. Concerning Rebekah Jones she of the Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day and her son.

Apparently Rebekah was a tad worried about some things her son was doing and called police. Police took him into custody.

Immediately Jones decided that Ron DeSantis had her son arrested and proclaimed such to the world.

Now unstable people making wild accusations is one thing but apparently the Miami Herald decided that the chance to attack Ron DeSantis was too good to pass up and thus:

Alas for the Herald there is this thing in twitter these days called community notes that can explain what truth actually is:

And VIOLA the headline at the Miami Herald changed:

Apparently while the Miami Herald didn’t know what “truth” was they could be educated with a bit of help, although the designation of Jones as a “whistleblower” is at best iffy.

Closing thought: Speaking of Pilate and the press here is a headline from Hotair.com:

Krugman: even if Trump is innocent, this is justice

As I recall Pilate decided it was the best thing to hand a man he knew was innocent of the charges against him to the mob too.

Update: Hotair has more, it’s worse

Older Entries
Newer Entries